Not Plenty Likely...
by Kirin2
Summary: Rikku meets everybody, such as they are. Squall is stressed, and Seifer yells at his posse about stubbed toes. What's next, man, hijacking Ragnarok? Hey, maybe...
1. Default Chapter

Well, okay! I guess someone's going to want an explanation… After all, who would ever, _ever_ think to do _this_? If it isn't the least likely pairing of any FF characters ever, I'll eat my socks! *Pauses* You know, on second thought, I won't be doing that. Well, if you need an explanation, then, quite simply, I like it. I like Rikku. I like Zell. They're my favorites, all-time, and as such, they deserve each other in my eyes.

Man, am I crazy or what? ^_^;;

Well, alright, time to hit it, so…

Final Fantasy VIII, and all related characters and indicia are the copyrighted properties of Squaresoft, bless 'em. Ditto for Final Fantasy X and any allusions to Final Fantasy VII contained within this fan fiction. I swear that I, make no money off of this - I write it only out or respect for the creative posse at Square, to have fun with their characters and to possibly parody some events.

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Chapter I

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... I could only gape as those huge jaws gaped and the scales started sailing through the air at high speeds. The gigantic carapace outsized the island itself, and yet, incredibly, Sin was not even fully emerged from the waters of the world ocean. Below me, on the shore, the village was lined across the shore... they were simple fishermen and peasants. Honest people who'd never hurt a soul in their lives...

And in a heartbeat, they were all dead. Men, women and children alike. A flash of light and they had been indiscriminately vaporized by the energy field that enveloped Sin's body, their only legacy ashes that flew in the wind and could not be distinguished from the ruined dust of their houses. Both came up to me on the wind, up to the top of the mountain where I stood, watching with a heavy heart.

_How? I_ wondered to myself, feeling my eyes sting and try and tear up. I stopped tears from falling by shutting my eyes to the scenes of destruction below. _How can Sin be back? We killed it... ended Jecht forever..._

"I don't believe it..." Tidus said, his face a mask of mixed horror and rage. "We sent it to the Farplane. It was _gone_..."

"One Sin ends," Wakka said, lowering his eyes to the ground, "And another begins. We have yet to atone... and we were fools to think we could change anything."

"No!" I said, turning around looking him in the eye. "Don't say that... we can keep trying, you know!"

"Why bother?" Wakka asked, shrugging. "It's not like Sin is going to just go away..."

I always got so angry when he talked that way. Of course I did - I've always been an optimist, or at least stubborn. Maybe both. In any case, I wasn't about to just listen to him give up hope like that. I've never respected quitters... that's why I'm persistent in everything I do, even if it's hard. Everything worthwhile in life is, right? So it's no use quitting...

"You can't just give up, Wakka! You're not a quitter, are you?" I looked desperately at him, searching his face for some sign of epiphany - maybe he'd yet realize that he was just upset over what was going on, that it was only momentary and he should be driven to new heights by his anger over this, just like he always used to be when I first met him...

"I don't know, Rikku..." he said slowly, beginning something. It didn't matter what he wanted to say. I wasn't going to stick around and listen to his hope for Spira's future die like that. So I did what I usually do in uncomfortable situations like that... make a tactical retreat of sorts. I prefer to think of it as 'advancing in the other direction'. But that's not important. Anyway, I ran down the hill... just to be alone awhile. Away from Wakka and Tidus and the others, who all stood together as they always had, and away from Sin, who now launched it's spawn in droves to cleanse the island of any people who hadn't been in the village. They would probably attack the village first. My friends would go and try and get them there... I'd be along... I'd follow them there in secret. I just didn't want to look at Wakka right then, or talk to Tidus about what he thought. I didn't even want to consult Lulu, like I usually might. I just wanted to be alone... and to fight some Sinspawn.

***

"Ma! I'm home!"

I entered the front door of… well, I guess it wasn't really my house anymore, but still, my home. A home with love in it never stops being your home, Ma said when I first left for Garden. Though, she probably just wanted me to visit her more often.

"Hi, Zell," She said, turning around with her customary smile. When she saw that I was alone, it broadened a bit and she walked over to hug me. Heh, that was something, thankfully, she _didn't_ do when I had friends around with me. I mean, it's not like I mind hugging my Ma, but I guess I do worry about keeping that tough guy image around my peers. Which is really, honestly the person who I am with them. They're like family… but not in the same way Ma is.

So anyway, I hugged her back and she let go and looked up at my hair. And, predictably, she said something about trendy hair and baggy pants and how it must alienate girls.

"Hey, that ain't fair, Ma…" I said, though I really didn't take any offense at all.

"Well, Zell, you've so far failed miserably when it comes to women," she chided in her way, getting back to a pot of boiling something-for-dinner. "What about that nice girl who gave you the magazine the one time? You went on about how nice she was for days…"

"Well, yeah, Ma, but that's it, she was just nice, is all. Not anything other girls ain't…"

My Ma rolled her eyes. Well, she wasn't facing me, but I'll assume she rolled her eyes, because if I knew her, that's what she would have done if she _was_ facing me. Right to my face. That's my Ma for you.

"Zell, you're being overly picky, and you know it."

"Aw, no I'm not…" I walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs to my room to take my shoes off and relax a little before dinner. Jeez, used to be I came over and me and mom would talk about nice things. What a big hero I was for rollin' with Squall and stopping Ultemicia and all that. How she was doing, which I did honestly care about. Even the weather, which hardly ever has any noticeable changes in Balamb anyway. But now whenever I came over it was like she wanted me to get married off and stuff. Or at least go on some nice dates...

Lying down on my bed, I pondered it more and more. It was hard not to, for me. I mean, this was something that was important to my mother, and that meant it should be just as important to me. I was her only son, after all. I had to watch out for her interests.

But the truth was, I wasn't much for that sort of thing. I mean, I like girls as much as the next guy, okay? But still, it was hard for me to just… get to know one. I don't know, maybe Ma was right and I _was_ too picky. But… I don't know, I just felt like it wasn't _time_ yet. It wasn't the _time_ for hunting for a woman to be around. It wasn't the _time_ to start trying to tie myself to another human being like that, as nice as it sounded. It was more a time for… for…

"Dinner!"

"Coming, Ma!" Oh, well. No need to worry about it so much right now…

***

"Aakh!" I grunted as the Sinspawn beast slapped me across the face with its tail. _Why_ had I been so stupid? _Why_ had I run away from my teammates like that? I'd fought fiends all night by myself, wasting my strength… now it was just me against this thing I'd come across... and those were not good odds, considering that it was about five times bigger than I was.

It bellowed at me, showing me its rows of fangs, arranged in a circular pattern like the shape of its mouth. Each seemed to shine red as fire in the light of the sunrise. The razor-sharp teeth seemed to stretch back endlessly into its wormlike body.

"Eat this!" I shouted as I pulled a grenade from my belt and used a length of twine to attach a small pouch of powdered Ouchu musk to it. When I threw the explosive right into its mouth, it closed its mouth and tried to spit it up - the result being that it just choked on it before it exploded with triple the force of a regular grenade, bursting the sides of the beast in a shower of greenish goop and bloodying the ground.

"Ha! What's the matter, indigestion?" I smiled at the corpse, feeling victorious and pleased with myself... until I looked up just a bit. Then a bit more. Until I was looking straight ahead into the thick of the woods that blanketed the jungle... and outside of the clearing was in... resting on tree branches... on the ground... crowding each other... were dozens more of these same gigantic worms.

"Oh, _damn..._" I cursed, looking them all over. There was no way I could rightfully hope to survive...

But I hoped anyway. Leave it to me to fight the system.

"Come and get some of Rikku, you fish bait!" I cried, brandishing my fighting claws and sneering, trying to look more confident than I really felt. Might as well die with grace and some style, even if nobody was looking...

***

"Bye Ma!" I said, waving at her and jogging out the door.

"Next time, spend the night when you don't have work _in the morning_, Zell, or you'll be late!" She yelled after me as I cut through the fog. Well, she was probably right. I mean, if I was late… well, as an Instructor, it just wouldn't do to be late. Especially not if Squall heard about it. He might dock my pay! You think you know a guy… and then he becomes your boss. Sheesh.

Well, not to worry. I had plenty of time, and I was getting some exercise. Now I was striking out on the road back to where Garden had been replaced after we had brought it home from FH. It surprised me how little things had changed on this island I'd called home for almost my whole life, considering all that had happened throughout the rest of the world. I'm sure my friends wouldn't guess at it, but I did think about these things. Maybe even more than they did. It was just a wonderful thing to me to know that I could still, after the hardships I - and we _all_ had endured - run the familiar road from Balamb to the Garden without worry of getting jumped by soldiers.

As I ran further along the path, I could almost see Garden in the distance, though it was obscured by the soupy mists that passed over the fields out here. They were clearing now… my students were probably waking up back at Garden, taking showers, finding their equipment and wondering where they'd put their homework.

What could possibly make me want to change this life of mine?

***

"Aaah!" I shouted as I was knocked to the ground by another of those whipping, slashing tails. This was definitely not good. Not good at all.

A roll onto my side let me dodge the next one that came down and struck the ground where I'd just been laying. I got up onto my feet somehow, and, without even hesitating to look back, ran. I was going to die, there was no doubt of that, but I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of it being easy. And if I could get them beat, then so much the better. I had to get back to my friends, and to the airship to get help - if we were all there, we'd win somehow. I had to apologize for my selfishness at least, before I died. I couldn't go out with them thinking that I was a spoiled brat, like I'd always made myself out to be, I guess… _I'm more complex than that_, I thought. _I can't die with nobody else ever knowing who I really was. Otherwise I might as well have not lived at all._ Those thoughts were the only things that kept me running, tired as I was.

I hurdled over a fallen tree. I was fairly sure I could hear one of those Sinspawn smash effortlessly through behind me, but I didn't bother to glance over my shoulder, even for a second. I was running as fast as I could and I didn't need to be slowed down any, when it might mean death.

"I'm not afraid of bugs," I panted, still not looking back. "I'm not afraid of bugs, I'm not afraid of bugs…" _You're not afraid of worms, _I told myself. _Never have been. And, hey, at least you're not being chased by a pack of Thunder Elementals, huh? _I mused. I could almost kick myself for even thinking about wisecracking at a time like this. And I would have kicked myself, too, if it wouldn't have involved slowing down long enough to be torn to shreds by my pursuers. Which I didn't think I quite deserved, even if I hadn't been very smart or nice.

I squeezed my eyes tightly closed as I came to a place where a branch hung low and dashed straight on through the tangle of leaves. Fortunately the tree wasn't so dilapidated that the branch was low enough to hit me, but it slowed me down just for half a second or so. That was all the Sinspawn needed to catch up. They were on my heels, snapping their wide mouths. If I thought I'd been running as fast as I could before, I hadn't known my own strength, because now the trees flew by on either side twice as fast. I felt my saliva turn a disgustingly salty taste… my heart was pounding so hard inside my chest that I could hear it in my ears - no doubt, I was getting way too tired to keep on much longer. The fighting, the running, it was too much for me, as much energy as I always had. If I didn't get to safety soon, I was going to die of a heart attack, not the fiends.

There! At a point just ahead, the trees thinned out and sun shone. The beach - I could get away there, in the water. These worms probably couldn't swim, and even if they could, it was doubtful they could keep up anyway. What was left of my strength would serve me better out in the sea anyway…

The only problem was that it would involve a flat out run over a stretch of sand. A flat run where they could catch up and get me to the ground. And if they did that, I wasn't going to get back up, I knew.

So that was it. This again - life or death, no way of choosing anything else. But I had to try. "Damn it, damn it…" I hissed through my teeth, panting each word out rhythmically. I didn't look back. I ducked my head lower and pushed my legs harder with each step, forcing myself to tap into the kind of strength mortal terror brings one from deep inside the soul.

I hit the sand. My feet dug in a little with every step, but I was going too fast and hard for it to slow me down. Just a few seconds after I'd reached the edge of the tree line, I was nearly at the water, and I leapt as high as I could, making a diving form with my body and slicing into the surf. I didn't know if the worms were still after me, but I still didn't wait until I was all the way underwater to start swimming. The water did cool me off, and I felt pretty confident that I could go for awhile like this, weary though I may have felt. After twenty or thirty strokes, I was past the waves and any effect they had on my forward motion, so I slowed my strokes and looked behind myself.

They weren't behind me. They were on the shore and not following.

I laughed, feeling victorious. I'd done it! I'd cheated death! They couldn't touch me here… now I just had to find a rock or something to rest on until I could find a way to my friends again…

Then, _then_ I heard it. That loud, continuous roar or churning water and flying spray that was the sound of imminent death. 

_That's_ why they hadn't followed. It was coming back for them, like it always did. Sin was coming back for them.

***

I was nearing the gates of Garden by now, and the twin statues of monsters that flanked the entrances that I knew so well. It was quite a sight at this hour of the morning, the Garden. Its halo reflected the shining of the early morning's sun as the dawn's fog cleared up.

I'd just passed the gateway when it happened. My ears popped, just like that. My whole head felt pressured, like I was under a whole lot of water.

"What the…?" I smacked myself in the side of my head, hoping that might clear up the wholly unpleasant sensation. But it only got worse - and now there was a ringing in my ears, too. What was this? Was I going into a vision? The symptoms were similar to how it was when I used to see Laguna and his friends, but Ellone had stopped that happening a long time ago, hadn't she?

Whatever it, was, it was more than unpleasant now. It was downright painful. Stopping jogging, I gripped both sides of my head and knelt to the floor, shutting my eyes tightly to try and dull the way they were beginning to sting and my vision blurred to white. I can't begin to describe it, but I swear I could _sense_… well, that sounds stupid… but I could definitely sense that something was going to happen. I still don't know what it was, but I _knew_ what was happening, in some way. But all I could think at the moment, of course, was much simpler and less eloquently developed… more along the lines of: _Just what the hell's going on with me?!_

***

Sin came closer, not slowing down even a little. I treaded water there, not even thinking about my limbs moving to stay afloat. I was on automatic. I was too terrified to scream or even cry. I just blinked… I felt dumbfounded. How could that be it? I had just been so happy. I'd just cheated death. And now I was going to be killed anyway.

_Better luck next time,_ some annoying random thought fired off as Sin rose up out of the water, its huge fins framing the sun perfectly, and then its horrible head breaking the surface of the ocean into a million flying sheets of spray. It rose up higher and higher, until it blotted out the sun behind it. The shadow it cast was so unnaturally dark I thought it might be something magically evil about Sin. But it didn't matter now. Nothing seemed to, for a long second. Nothing but death.

And then the shadow was broken by light. Bright, white light…

***

The blinding sensation dimmed, though my eyes were still adjusting to the regular light almost a minute later. I just remained like that, on my knees on the pavement, rubbing my eyes like it would help. When finally I could see with some semblance of normality again, I blinked at the world around me. Nothing seemed out of place. It must have just been a weird reaction to something I ate… maybe ma's cooking. I'd see the Doctor about it. No need to worry.

So, having almost dismissed my odd experience, I stood.

And that's when I saw her. She was on her side on the ground, either dead or unconscious, I couldn't tell which. But her clothes had cuts and tares in them that suggested she'd been in a fight, so naturally I went on guard, looking left, then right for any monsters that might have done this to her. Nothing. I ran over to kneel down beside her, looking her over. She looked hurt pretty bad from behind, but hey, me no doctor. One thing I did notice was her clothes. _Must be her combat gear_, I thought. _Maybe she was out training hard at night, and when she came back she just collapsed from the stress…_

To examine more closely, I rolled her over carefully, making sure to hold her head so it didn't hit the ground and damage her further.

_Oh…_

Oh, wow…

I blinked stupidly. I was actually glad she was unconscious, for just a second. I imagine I looked like I'd never seen a girl before. But… there was just no describing how it was, seeing her for the first time. Even asleep, and beaten down, something about her face emphasized inner energy this way I'd only ever seen in Selphie, and even then, there was something else… a kind of mystique…

And hey, screw the poetry, she was just plain hot!

As gently as I could, I scooped her up into my arms, putting a hand on her back and one under her knees to carry her along as I started walking cautiously (but quickly!) towards Garden and Dr. Kadowaki's office. This girl needed more help than just a Potion or two could cure.

"Guys…" I heard a small voice mumble. This was followed by the tiniest of coughs. I kept myself from looking down at her so I could concentrate on the walking better - the last thing I wanted was to drop her. "Guys… I'm sorry I left you…"

As much as I had seen and done, as many monsters as I'd fought and as many history-changing battles as I'd helped win… something about her saying that made me twitch worriedly. So help me, somehow, this prone, incapacitated girl scared me. She scared me deep.

And so I first met _her_. 

That's how _my_ story begins.

How _our _story begins.

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End Chapter I

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	2. 

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Chapter II

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"Uuhh..." I groaned, rolling over. The first thing I noticed was that I wasn't dead. The second... I was surrounded by bright lights when I creeked my eyes open.

Was this it? Was I dead? Maybe the Yevonites were right... maybe I was on the Farplane. That'd mean I'd died without ever getting to say goodbye to my friends. I'd died having had run away from them. They must think I hated them or something...

My eyes opened fully. I wasn't in a field of flowers or anything of the sort, as I'd heard the Farplane described. Just a bright room, full of all kinds of machina and instruments. Almost every tool here as made of metal, it seemed... even my bed looked like metal. At least, it had metal sidings on it. And I was wrapped in warm, white linens. My clothes had been changed - I found myself in some kind of strange paper dress now. Sitting up, I took a look at myself a little further.

Things were sticking out of me! ...or, were attached to me, or something. They were large white dots on me... with multiply colored wires sticking out.

_Weird_... I thought to myself._ I thought I was dead for sure. Are these what's keeping me alive?_ I looked left, then right. Yeah, there was a door, but I probably shouldn't get up. I might lose one of these things attached to me.

As it turned out, I didn't have to leave the bed to find someone. They entered, probably having had seen me waking.

The woman who came in was tall, with fine features and blond hair, done in a tight bun at the back of her head.. Her eyes were as green as mine. I could tell right when she entered the room - they seemed to catch the sunlight perfectly, behind her small eyeglasses. I immediately imagined myself with her hair and glasses and felt envious of her looks. Her clothes were rather odd, though - she wore a long sort of white jacket and carried a clipboard.

"Up, I see?" She said, looking at me appraisingly. "Looks like you're doing a lot better than you were when you got here."

I was surprised when she didn't speak Al Bhed. Wasn't she one of us? She had our hair and eyes. The room was full of machina. How could she not be?

"Aren't you Al Bhed?" I asked, blinking.

"Excuse me?" the woman asked, looking up from her clipboard where she had been jotting down information, no doubt about my progress and how I looked. I wanted to see a mirror, to see if I had some bad bruise on my face or something else I shouldn't go out in public with. But more than that, I wanted to understand why a clear Al Bhed wasn't speaking our tongue.

"Al Bhed… I mean, why are you… oh, forget it," I said. I tightened my focus on her eyes. Oddly enough, they lacked the spiraled pupil that all Al Bhed babies were born with. _That's so strange… there are only a few people with green eyes that aren't spiraled, and I'm sure they all know about us…_

"I've never seen you around Garden before," the woman said, quickly scribbling things down. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Rikku, Bein-Cid."

"Rikku Bencid, you said?" She asked, writing it down slowly to get the right spelling.

"No no no… Bein-Cid. The daughter of Cid. It's not overly complicated…"

The woman cocked an eyebrow at me over her clipboard. "Cid? You're Headmaster Cid's daughter?"

"I don't know what a 'Headmaster' is, miss," I answered, shaking my head. "In any case, can I take these wires off?"

"Yes, you can take off the electrodes" she answered. "I'll be back in a minute…" the woman stood and turned to leave still writing. I stopped her as I removed the first of the sticky patches holding the wires to me.

"S'cuse me?" I tried, causing her to turn.

"What is it?"

"What's your name?"

"Dr. Trepe. But you can call me Quistis."

The woman in the jacket flashed me a smile and walked out the door and out of my line of sight, leaving me to take off the 'electrodes', and wonder where I could be.

***

I'd never gotten quite used to the Instructor's table. After all, nobody sat here but me, Squall, Selphie, Irvine, Xu, and, when he was around, Cid. Quistis never had time to eat her lunch with friends, and Rinoa spent most of the time with her kid.

Don't get me wrong - I'd eat lunch with these people even if I did have a choice. But there were some other people I'd like to sit with, who weren't instructors.

Just another one of the problems with being the same age as most of your students. There were respect issues, maturity issues on both their part _and_ yours, and all the stuff about girls. Honestly, what did my mom expect? The girls at Garden were the same ones I was making do laps and push-ups! They'd never want to get involved with their Combat Training instructor…

"Saved you a 'dog, Zell," Irvine said as I plopped down in my chair. "Honestly, with all the prime grub they give us at this table, you'd think you'd find something better than these to keep eating…"

The one thing that hadn't changed about lunchtime. No matter how early or how late I got to the cafeteria, they'd never have a hotdog for me. Even if I came ten minutes beforehand, they either didn't have any that day, or something held me up just long enough to keep me from getting them. It was like some kind of bad status effect or something.

"Thanks, dude!" I took a bite out of it. More than worth having to ask a friend to get it for me, of course. Best hotdogs in the world! "So how's the kid, Squall?" I asked our 'fearless leader'. Funny I still think of him that way… but hey. I do. "I ain't seen her or Rinoa in awhile…"

Squall twirled his fork around his pasta cleanly, and without looking, ate it. After some pensive chewing and a swallow, Squall's face came back to normal. But something looked odd about him. His usually solid and placid eyes looked… annoyed with something.

"Well, we're not taking her around a lot because… Tira is… she's… she's going through a phase, at the moment." Squall looked down at his plate hard, so that we wouldn't see the worry on his face.

"Oh? What's up with her?" Irvine said absently. "Window breaking? I had that phase. I was around one too, when I started that… and it lasted until I was sixteen or so. Is that it?"

"No!" Squall answered, shaking his head at the utter dumbness of Irvine's comment. "No… she just…" he paused. "Look, it isn't important."

Selphie was trying to make a bunny shape out of her food with her fork. She didn't look up as she talked, just poked and prodded at one of the ears. "Well, we're like family too! You can tell us. We won't make fun or anything…"

"Uh…" Squall breathed. "Okay. See, Tira just figured out how to undress herself so now whenever we try and put clothes on her, she takes them off."

Selphie covered her mouth with her hand to stop herself from giggling, despite her promise not to laugh. I immediately choked on some of my 'dog because I'd started laughing while it was in my food. Irvine backwashed his coffee in surprise.

"What?!" Irvine asked with total incredulity, looking at Squall in shock. "She _what_?"

"She… she won't keep her clothes on." Squall sighed. "I've heard a few other couples say it's normal… but she won't even wear a diaper, which is causing serious trouble, if you know what I mean."

"Eew," Selphie said, then reached over and patted Squall on the back. "Poor daddy, doesn't know what to do with his little nudist daughter."

I would have put in my two cents, but there was still hotdog lodged in my throat, which Xu was trying to aid me in the removal of. None of my three other friends seemed to notice, so engrossed were they in conversation. Geez, sometimes I feel like comic relief. Isn't that weird?

"Cough, Zell!" Xu instructed me as she struck me on the back again and again.

Irvine ate a bit of his pasta, still looking like he was considering the situation. "Hmm… do you suppose it could be some kind of weird chemical in her brain? Because if it is, I was wondering if we could pump it into the water lines of the girls dorms and…"

"In _any_ event," Squall cut him off before he finished the sentence. "Me and Rinoa are going to try and work past this… like I say, it's probably just a phase, right?"

"I dunno, Squall," Selphie kidded, giggling. "I don't think I grew out of that one for a few _years_… who knows how long it'll take Tira?"

"Whoa. You wouldn't happen to still do it, would you?" Irvine asked hopefully, looking at her with his specialized puppy-dog eyes. "At least, you don't _often enough _when I'm around…"

__

Selphie went into and uncontrollable giggle fit and punched Irvine in the arm. "Sweetie! You shouldn't talk about that in public…"

Squall shook his head. "Look, how's the teaching going, guys?" 

"Well, to put it simply… they can't shoot. None of them have raw, natural talent you could just _mold. _You know… like _I _must have had_._" Irvine leaned back in his chair and smiled, looking as satisfied with himself as ever.

"And your department, Selphie?" Squall ignored Irvine again.

"I can't _wait_ until the next Garden Festival! The people at FH said we can use the same spot again if we want, and then we have a plan to make it an annual event, and…"

Squall just tried not to smile and nodded. "Okay, so you're making progress. That's good… and you, Zell?"

I thought for a second.

"Can't complain."

Selphie, having had finished her bunny, was dinking her drink, so she couldn't comment on my opinion. So instead, she poked Irvine once. He fidgeted. Twice. He fidgeted again and said "Quit it, Sephie."

Selphie rolled her eyes and let Squall ask.

"You don't have anything else to say?"

I tapped my index finger on the table a moment… then shook my head. "Nah."

"Zell, that's not like you," Selphie said, putting down her glass. She then punched Irvine in the arm. "Irvine, you're so dense it just shocks me sometimes, you know?"

"Am not _dense_," he defended. Selphie continued to look at him, like he was going to follow that up with something, but of course that was his entire argument, from start to finish. He went on to look down at her bunny. "You gonna finish that?"

Sighing, Selphie looked to me and continued. "Anyway, you should be more enthusiastic about your work."

"I am!" I answered, grinning. "I just… well, there's not much to say. I have fun teaching them how to be good combat SeeD. That's it."

"So, nothing noteworthy happened this morning with your classes?" Selphie pushed, looking a little desperate. It's strange how someone so happy loses almost all their energy when they see someone unhappy. So what else could I do? I cast about to find something.

"Well, I found this girl ly-"

"Was she cute?" Irvine interrupted before I could finish the sentence. Selphie punched him in the arm. "Strroww! Just _checking_, okay??"

I laughed. Then I went on. "Well, I found this girl, lying at the gate. She was unconscious, and I dropped her off with Dr. Kadowaki."

"She was just asleep there?" Squall asked, obviously intrigued. "Hmm. It wasn't on my morning update."

"The doctor said she wouldn't bother you with it 'til she got some answers. The girl looked kind of beat up, maybe concussed, but the doc said she and Quistis could have her up in a few hours, so…"

There was a loud tone over the PA.

-_Will Instructor Dincht please report to the Infirmary? Report to the Infirmary, please.-_

I stood up, pushing in my chair. "Well, gotta go. They probably wanna ask me some stuff, so, see ya!"

"How could you have not mentioned this?" Selphie looked rather upset with me. "You're even thicker than Irvine, Zell! I was in such a nice mood, too…"

"Selphie, you're always in a nice mood." I walked off, not really paying attention to what she'd said. I wouldn't know until later that she was, in some ways, pretty right.

***

I was eating some of the food they'd given me. Weird stuff - some of it looked downright unnatural. Like this odd sausage inside some bread. I didn't want to touch it… after all, how does somebody go about eating that? How do you hold it when you bite it? Other than that there were some slices of tuber or something that were pretty good in the gooey red sauce that was on them.

Dr. Trepe was talking to some other woman, this one older and with darker skin, and the same kind of white coat. I watched them as they conversed. They kept making odd little glances at me and nodding. Eventually someone joined them…

He was a boy. Maybe my age, maybe a little older. In any case, he had a strange but becoming little twist of hair over his forehead, and very baggy shorts that reminded me of something my brother would wear. In any event, he was… well, nice to look at. Even if he looked a bit awkward while talking to the two women (at one point the scratched the back of his head and smiled, as though embarrassed).

After a minute or two, he nodded at Quistis and turned to come in the room. I had to get my affairs in order. I wondered if my hair looked like a mess? Making a bad first impression on this guy would make me feel horrible for days. I tried to pad it down, just in case I did have bed head…

"Hey," he said, smiling a bit nervously. And who wouldn't be nervous? Talking to some strange girl who was jabbering about nonsense…

_What if I am crazy?_ I thought quickly. _It'd make sense. I'm under observation. I might be a head case. What if my whole life was just a big delusion? I… I really don't have time to think about this, 'cause he's sitting down on my bed!_

He just sat there and didn't say anything for a second, sort of smiling in this determined way - even if it was obvious in his eyes he was kind of uneasy. Then he saw something on my food tray.

"Aaah…" he began, looking at the tray. Then he pointed right at the sausage sandwich thing. "Are you gonna eat that…?"

I almost blushed.

"Um… I don't know how to hold it."

"Eh?" He looked up at me, not quite understanding what I'd just said.

_Oh, great job, Rikku. Now he thinks you're an idiot._

"They don't have hot dogs where you're from?" he asked.

My eyes opened wide and I sat up in the bed. "It's a _dog_?!" What kind of place was this!?

"No!" the boy put his hands up and motioned for me to relax and lay back. "No! That's just what they're called… actually, I'm not sure why…" he blinked. "But, anyway, if you can't hold it… here," he put his hand down over the plate and, using his fingers and thumb as two halves of a clamp, gripped the hot "dog" on either side of the bread.

"And then you bite at the ends," he smiled, and proffered the food item to me. I took it like he had.

"Thanks," I said before taking a first bite. It wasn't bad at all.

"Well, you know, teach a man to fish and all that," he replied. "You might wanna try some toppings on that, though. Be even better."

"Toppings, huh?" I looked at it, thinking about this.

***

I don't think Quistis and Dr. Kadowaki knew I could hear them.

"What are they doing?" Quistis asked, obviously completely mystified.

"They're, uh…" the doc thought about it a second. Then she decided to just point out the obvious. "They're playing with ketchup."

I swirled the bottle in the air, spiraling the ketchup over the center of the hot dog in a nice curly-Q pattern. It wasn't hard; I had a cheering section.

"Yes! Yes! It looks perfect! But _can_ he make the end perfect?!"

Rikku was offering commentary.

"Hah, don't try and threaten the master, girl, you know not who you mess wi-"

*Splurt*

An air bubble foiled my perfect pattern. Rather than a beautiful trail-off, there was a small splatter of ketchup at the tail of the 'dog.

There was a profound silence. I then hung my head in shame.

Rikku patted me on the back. "Don't feel bad, Zell. You would have gotten it if it weren't for those pesky laws of physics."

I frowned. "Stupid natural world."

Rikku giggled and I smiled. "Well, anyway, I think we've wasted enough of your hot "dogs"…" She cast a glance around at the many empty plates on which we'd been served more than a dozen hot dogs. This was the last one, and I was finishing it fast.

When I was done, I started piling up the plates. Rikku helped and handed them all to me. "Look, I've gotta go teach a class now, but, uh, would you mind if I came by last period? It's two hours from now and when I came back… well, I'd love to show your around the Garden…"

"Oh, sure," Rikku handed me the last plate. "See ya…"

"Bye," I turned away and walked off with the dishes, but I was still smiling. I smiled all the way to the cafeteria where I returned the plates and went back to the teacher's table for the last few minutes of lunch.

"Zell! Come on, man, start up, you barely ate any of your 'dog!" Irvine said when I got back, pointing to my half-finished lunch. 

I sat down. "Dude, I had the biggest, best lunch _ever_."

Irvine just rolled his eyes and went about eating the head of Selphie's spaghetti bunny.


	3. 

---

Chapter III

---

"Lift your weapons!" I shouted to them, raising my gloved hands into my usual fighting stance. "Remember, bounce up and down, not forward and back, or your momentum can work against you!"

Twenty SeeD cadets in four wide rows of five brought to bear their tools - fighting gloves like mine, guns, knives, swords, maces, whips, nunchaku, staffs and even a large metal ball to be rolled or tossed at foes. Amazingly enough, it was my job to teach each to use his or her chosen weapon effectively in combat - as varied as their armaments were. This isn't to say I taught them how to use the tools myself - it was up to them and their specialized instructors to teach them that. However, beyond each weapon's individual function, there was little difference in how to enter a fight properly, and win. The common ground included the basics - eyes straight, not too far up or down to miss a part of the opponent moving. Bounce up and down, not back and forth. Both legs sideways for fighting gloves to allow easy foot movement.

"Alright… _quick_!" I shouted.

My class of twenty all did their 'quick' attacks - fast stabs, jabs, swings of flails and more. It was incredibly simplistic compared to the intensive martial arts training I'd received from my next-door neighbor, a very old fisherman. There were very complicated routines I'd had to learn, reaction training for hours a day, technique specialization… these kids were getting off light. But as arrogant as it sounds, I tried to both simplify and _improve_ upon conventional fight training. I had to leave it up to students to decide what to do in less than conventional situations, which did come up in the field… so even as I tutored them in combat basics, I had to teach them to teach themselves through experience. Having as small an amount of doctrine as possible and as much good theory as I could give them would help. So… KISS. Keep it Simple and Stupid.

"_Strong_!"

This time, it was other forms of attack. Not a quick jab with a fist or a stab with a blade, but more powerful techniques like slashes and counterpunches. I had to keep everything as simple as this. There were three striking attacks. Just three.

"_Hyper!_" I roared. Each of the students did something more unique than the basics. I had asked each to work out their strongest attack and let me review them. By now I had each of the cadets doing something on par with what I'd only achieved after becoming full SeeD.

"Huuah!"

_Whump!!_

There was a loud, dull thud and suddenly a basketball-sized metal dome was sitting in the ground. Everyone stared at it. The student who had dropped his metal ball in mid-attack looked left and right embarrassedly and scratched the side of his head. "Uhh… oops."

I sighed. The boy, Garik, was so unconventional. Who fights with a ball, anyway? "Class dismissed. Homework is to show me this month's copy of Fighting Fanatic. And read it. Remember, next week is the field trip to the beach. That's a weapon to battle monsters there…" I smiled at the class. "And swimsuits."

All of them left my class happy, and talking. I wished I had had this class when I was a cadet… it might have been a course I coulda managed an 'A' in, heh. And if I had had a teacher who told us to bring trunks to class, I would never have skipped a lesson.

In short, I tried to be a good teacher - and according to everyone, I succeeded. I could teach fighting, but now I was going to have to teach something completely different.

Leaving the lawn where I'd created our parade ground for training, I headed directly for the infirmary.

_So I gotta teach Rikku what the world's like… _I thought to myself, putting my hands in my pockets and thinking about how I was going to do this. _God, why me? Squall said it should be me because she already knows me… but even being Mr. Know-It-All Zell isn't going to help if I don't know how to handle this right._

Passing into the infirmary, I heard something rather unexpected.

"Oh, no!"

Dr. Kadowaki sounded panicked. My eyes bugged out and I felt a rush come up. Maybe that girl I'd had so much fun playing with condiments with wasn't so nice, after all. I rushed towards the double doors to the doctor's office and punched the center so that they flew apart and I busted in, ready to fight!

I made an idiot of myself.

***

Zell stood with his fists up, obviously up for a serious battle. He looked so prepped to defend the doctor it was inspiring.

It was also very embarrassing.

"Hi, Zell!" I chirped cheerfully, trying not to make it seem like I was too amused.

I think what tipped him off first wasn't the bemused look on Dr. Kadowaki's face, or my own thinly-veiled mirth, but the cards on the table between us. I guess he knew the card game - Dr. Kadowaki said most people did. It still seemed kind of odd to me that a game could have such wide appeal, but I guess that's why Spira plays Blitzball. In any case, for a bit less than a second he was incredibly heroic looking and dashing. It was really cute… but, then he saw the cards and froze. So, in fact, he was still in the same fighting position, but his eyes were looking dumbly at the card game. This awkwardness lasted a few seconds before he relaxed himself and coughed.

"Uh…" he stared blankly at us, confused. "Umm… who's winning?"

I nearly burst out laughing, but managed to keep it to a wide smile. "Me," I answered. "Quistis leant me the cards."

The doctor nodded. "Yes, she's beating me pretty badly. Only her third try. Your friend's smart."

Zell was blushing a little bit now. "Umm… so I was gonna take you around Garden?"

"Oh yeah!" I stood up, my new shirt and shorts almost uncomfortable on me. I'd never felt a fabric so oddly soft as this 'cotton' stuff… "Um, can we keep the game, doctor?"

"Of course. I want you to come back so we can keep you overnight until we can get you someplace around here."

"Okay!" I jumped up and wrapped my arm around his, quickly turning him around and dragging him out of the little hospital.

"Aren't I supposed to be leading you…?" he asked lamely, very confused.

***

"Oh, _wow_…" she gasped, looking at Garden as we walked from the Infirmary inward. The terraces and colored tethers that hung about Balamb Garden did look particularly lovely in this nice weather.

"This is Balamb Garden, home of elite mercenary soldiers and peacekeepers called SeeD… uh, that would be someone like me," I indicated myself with my thumb. "We learn and become soldiers in this place. I grew up around here…"

Rikku pulled me sideways and bent her head over the side of one of the walkways, looking at the water below. "You got to grow up in a place like this?" she asked, amazed. "This is a palace!"

I looked over too, then smiled. "… It flies, too, you know."

Rikku just looked at me. "You're kidding…"

I walked her over towards the main entrance. "Down here's where we go in and out of the Garden. There's a road to Balamb… that's where I'm from."

"I've been meaning to ask about that," she looked over at me. "Have you ever heard of a city called Zanarkand? Do you know what Yevon is?"

I blinked. "Nope."

"Uhh, what about Blitzball? Ever play Blitzball?"

I shook my head, hoping this didn't make me an idiot.

"… Sin?"

"What's that?"

She grinned, her eyes lighting up. "Well it's something I don't have to worry about anymore, that's all."

That was when I noticed her eyes. It surprised the hell out of me, of course. She had… _no pupils_. I didn't say anything, but she noticed easily.

"And you obviously don't know about us Al Bhed, either," she said simply, and rather than be offended she actually offered help with it. "All the babies in my race are born with eyes like me. Most of us have hair like yours and mine, and it's almost always straight. Hmm… and we're the only ones who ever use machines. Although by the looks of things, you do things rather differently wherever I am now…"

"You're on Balamb Island. Um, unless I'm even worse at geography than my teachers said."

"Hmm, never heard of it. I wonder if I'm in the future or the past…" Rikku looked at her wrist like her antique-style watch would help. "But anyway, I don't know that it matters."

"It's not important to you to get home?" Zell asked, leaning backwards against a railing.

"It is, but," Rikku looked straight up at the many stylized skylights of the Garden "But a lot of people spend their whole lives trying to get away from Sin. Sin's a fact where I'm from… but here it's not. I can't just act like that isn't something I have a responsibility to take advantage of."

You know, I didn't understand then. I really didn't know what she was talking about - a responsibility to take advantage of a gift you've gotten… it confused me, actually. Like I said, Selphie was right about me being dense… but even the first time I heard her say it, I decided to keep it with me, come what may. Later on, I'd finally figure out what it meant when it counted…


	4. 

Uhh… a Zeikku, maybe? I dunno… and yeah, I know her eyes were supposed to be blue. I only just thought of it when I started playing the game from the beginning again right after I uploaded the first chapter ^_^;;. Oh, well…

---

Chapter IV

---

Seifer

---

I was not a happy man. But then, I hadn't been for a long time. Not since those Garden wimps had gone and ruined everything for me. _Again_.

It hardly seemed fair. What had happened to my righteous, artistic soul? My romantic dream? My heart's desire - to find a woman and serve her like a knight. I'd lived that beautiful dream… I'd been living my dream for a blissful time… and suddenly, it had been crushed. I had been defeated, my own beloved lady had betrayed me, and people had wanted me to do things… to be someone I wasn't. A general… not the knight I was. Like SeeD… they had wanted me to be a soldier, rather than something more _poetic_. How the hell could I _not_ have hated them, anyway?

I didn't want to command an army. I wanted to be commanded… commanded by a woman I could care for… was that so wrong?

Of course it was too much to ask. It must be. Why the hell else was it sitting _here_, on this bridge, staring at the sunset like it was going to answer some of my questions?

Because we were going to Fisherman's Horizon and Raijin had stubbed his toe again. _That's_ why.

"If I don't take care of it, it'll get turn into a bruise, ya know?" he asked, carefully touching the ice he and Fujin had created with a blizzard spell to it to keep it from swelling. "And I might not be able to walk then, ya know? I'd have to have crutches, ya know? And -"

"And we'd never hear the end of your whining!" I shouted at him, standing up and scowling. Raijin looked surprised. I don't understand why he always looks so amazed every time I do that - I do it so often he might have become accustomed to it by now. Anyone would have, wouldn't they? But then, if he had, I suppose he wouldn't still be tight with me. Neither would Fujin.

I thought about apologizing. I actually wanted to. But do it? Hell no. What for, anyway? It was just a temporary weakness of my conscious brought on by those damn, _stupid_ SeeD losers! I hated them - I hated them _so much_!

"Let's go!" I shouted, turning and beginning to walk along the long bridge that stretched on as far as the eye could see. "We're behind schedule as it is!"

"What schedule?" Raijin called from behind me as I continued on, Fujin following directly behind. "Nobody told me! I'm bein' neglected here, ya know!!"

When Fujin was walking in step with me, I made sure to turn to her and whisper something.

"Don't push him off the bridge yet. It'll set us back. Try and wait until we're there to teach him a lesson."

I looked away, making sure I didn't see her small smile. It would have embarrassed her too much.

---

Zell

---

"Here are our classrooms," Zell explained, strolling with me through the long, neat gray corridors of the second floor. "Here we have the physics department, I think."

"That explains all the gravity," I said with a grin. Zell just looked at me. I laughed at him. "Oh, come on, Zell, you take things too seriously."

"I never thought anyone would say that to me," he said, looking perplexed and raising an eyebrow as I looked intently at the pictures and displays up on the walls. "Whatcha lookin' at?" he peered at what I was so intently reading… or, not reading.

"What's this?" I pointed at a diagram with many color-coded levels and what looked like stairs and pipelines.

"That's Garden."

"Where we are?"

"Yup," Zell said, then pointing to one specific spot on an upper ring. "Here's where we are, more specifically."

"How tall _is_ this thing?" I asked, noting the three rings above the second, where we were.

"What you see, plus two basements," Zell supplied. "And some adjoining stuff outside, like the training grounds and quad. Uh, those parts don't fly, though," he added when I started tracing the base with my fingers to find the parts that were separated by a dotted line.

"But everything inside this line does?" I asked, amazed. "How is that possible?"

"It uses some antigravity… skylift… uhh… air… thing…" Zell scratched the back of his head again. Then he smiled embarrassedly. "I don't really know."

"A skylift antigravity wheel?" I asked. "Very colorful, spins around and makes things fly?"

"That sounds about right," Zell said. He blushed, actually, and I had to smile.

"I can't imagine how that would work. Even the biggest airships aren't half as large as all of this, but… you're saying it lifts all of it?"

"It does," Zell answered. "Don't ask me why…"

"Well, I wouldn't worry about it," I turned and carried on. "Now what's this?"

---

Zell

---

It was impossible not to stare.

Oh, I tried all afternoon, but failed miserably. How could I _not_? She was so… so… _alive_! Everything she did… for the first time in my life, I was having trouble keeping up with somebody. There was no waiting with Rikku - and I liked that.

"What's this?" she pointed to a large photo on one wall. I smiled.

"That's a painting of Ragnarok."

"An airship?" she looked at the back, where the thrusters were glowing brightly.

"Yeah," I confirmed, pleased I was about to amaze her again. "But more importantly, a spaceship." 

Rikku just looked puzzled. I grinned at her. "You know. Above the sky."

Her jaw dropped. I walked right past, now with the upper hand. "It's at Fisherman's Horizon right now, I think. The White SeeD use it sometimes. Oh, um, hey, I should introduce you to Squall. He'll want to see you."

"Who?" Rikku looked away from the painting and jogged a few steps to catch up with me.

"Squall is the, uh, 'Honorary Headmaster Acting Until Further Notice' from the 'Standing Headmaster'…, which would be headmaster Cid. So, since Cid is unofficially retired, Squall is the head honcho around here, without being the official headmaster."

"Sounds complicated," Rikku said, shaking her head. "Is he a nice guy?"

"Oh, yeah. He's a little cold, sometimes, but he's really got a heart of gold. He's a great dad, too."

"How old is he, anyway?" Rikku looked at me with those striking eyes.

"Well really he's only got about a year on me, but sometimes he seems a lot older," I explained as we came to the elevator. I let Rikku use it, then, when we were inside, explained about the Headmaster's Office. "Usually only SeeD get let up there," I told her truthfully. "I never even saw it until my fifth year here."

"Guess I'm lucky," Rikku smiled.

God, this girl was great.

---

Squall

---

Plainly, my marriage was in trouble.

I loved Rinoa. I loved Tira. However, it was very hard to do the former when the latter so often involved staying up late at night to help my daughter get to sleep. Nightmares about monsters plagued my little girl, and I had to do something about it… fighting monsters was a big part of my job, after all. The only problem was, I could only help her go to sleep. It was up to her from there on. And as satisfying as it was to see my daughter finally get rest, that's how unsatisfied my wife was. She didn't say anything, of course, but she's the woman I love and I can read her like a book.

I'd thought, after almost nine months of… well, just sleeping all night, Rinoa and I would finally be able to be intimate again… but instead, we weren't sleeping at night and _still_ didn't get in anything else.

So here I sat, feeling very tense, very stressed, and very tired. I just needed to take a nap. I needed to go home and see my wife. I just needed to calm myself… what Irvine would term "Chillin' out 'fore I ruptured sumthin."

It didn't help my mood that it was Monday, and I abruptly needed to attend to several matters of urgency at once before the whole Garden was shot to hell for the rest of the week.

First in was Irvine.

Apparently, we were running out of fire ammo, and for some reason, Irvine really, really needed fire ammo to teach his class this week. Which, he went on quickly to explain, had nothing to do with the fact that Nida had just received ten sets of fireproof armor to teach elemental tactics.

"After all," he laughed nervously. "What would that have to do with it?"

"Of course," I replied, drumming my fingers on the table. "It would be very irresponsible of an instructor to put such armor on his students and use them for target practice."

"Uh, yeah!" Irvine nodded, his head shaking as he did so. "How inappropriate would that be? Hahaha!"

"So you wouldn't be able to tell poor Nida anything about these?" a voice came from the doors to my office. Quistis stood at the doorway, holding an orange vest with a rather sloppy red, blue and white group of target circles painted on the front. Quistis walked up to my desk and tossed it over to me. I caught it, but felt rather awkward doing so. Why couldn't we just talk about normal issues? Like running out of a certain type of ammo for a good reason, or…

"He's teaching a lesson right now," Quistis fumed, shooting Irvine a glare of death. "But he asked me to come up and tell you about this, Squall. Do you know what kind of problems this could cause?" she crossed her arms. "I hope Irvine knows that monsters like Bomb are afraid of this kind of color scheme…"

"Well, good then!" Irvine said, satisfied with him. "Doubles the effectiveness of the armor!"

"No, Irvine, it _halves_ it!" Quistis snapped. "If no Bombs attack a student in the armor, then there's no point in Nida's lesson about the benefits of two combatants with the same elements canceling each other out, is there?!"

Irvine swallowed. "Uh… oops?"

Just then, something even more unexpected happened.

"Squall, Squall! Look what I got!"

Selphie dashed into my office, towing behind her nothing less than a five-foot tall yellow bird. A chocobo.

I stood up and gaped at Selphie as she brought it all the way up to my desk. Quistis forgot all about faulty fire armor, and Irvine (who had probably already forgotten anyway) was just staring at it blankly.

"Isn't he _cuuute_?" Selphie asked, hugging the Chocobo's neck tightly. "And he's _sooo_ much more environmentally sound than the Garden Car! Plus he'll cost a lot less, and we can keep him in the training grounds, and he'll even be a mascot for our basketball team!"

Irvine blinked. "We don't have a basketball team…"

"That'll be my next project, then!" Selphie squealed excitedly.

I cleared my throat and frowned. "Achem… Selphie, I think you forgot about just one thing."

"Huh?" Selphie looked completely taken off guard by this one.

"The Garden's car seats six. This chocobo has room for two, at the most," I sighed. "Can you think about the math there for a moment?"

Selphie looked up at her precious bird, which was presently eating a potted plant from my desk. "Um… heh. I didn't remember that."

I looked at the bird, then the size of the elevator doors. "How did you get it up here, anyway?"

But that was when something even more amazing entered the room.

A new girl.

Her eyes, though she had no pupils that I could discern from the distance from which I first saw her, were a blazing green - or perhaps it was just the way that the sun was shining at her that reflected them at all our eyes. Her hair was blond, and done in some exotic style none of us had ever seen before, to be sure. Her clothes were plainly borrowed from the infirmary, but for some reason she wore a pair of goggles around her neck.

This strange young woman proceeded to walk nonchalantly right up to my desk and lean on it with one elbow on the top of it and a hand on her hip. Zell following behind with an embarrassed, apologetic look on his face for the lack of ceremony. The girl surveyed our faces. She saw everything - the cowboy, the whip-toting doctor, the cheerleader girl, the man-sized bird eating the rhododendron, the overwhelmed family man and headmaster, and the painted-on and ruined fireproof vest.

And she smiled.

"Oh, yes," she giggled. "I think I'm going to be right at home here."


End file.
